Sandy Davis - An Interview

Between The Fenceposts is a selection of real-life tales of homestead life. You can find it HERE.

Open Shelf caught up with author Sandy Davis to find out more. 

Let's start at where all good stories start - the beginning. What first convinced you that the chaos happening on your homestead wasn’t just daily life, but material for a book? Do you remember the moment you thought, “I should really start writing these stories down before people think I’m making them up”?

My dad was a great storyteller. When I was growing up, my brother and I heard the same stories over and over. Stories about how he accidentally ruined his sister's Easter shoes, how he used to sit on the shed roof playing his harmonica in the early morning hours, how he met my mother, and even the reason he never liked her name.

Every story started the same way: "Well, back in them days..." My brother and I would roll our eyes because we'd heard them at least a hundred times already. Then Dad passed away. Today I'd give just about anything to hear those stories one more time.

I can still remember most of them, at least the important parts, but I wish they had been written down. That's probably the biggest reason I wrote my book. In a way, I'm continuing my father's storytelling tradition, but I'm making sure the stories are preserved.

I've been writing a farm blog since 2008, recording both the heartfelt and the ridiculous moments that come with homesteading in rural northern New Hampshire. Over the years, readers would often say, "You should write a book."

The truth is, I didn't suddenly realise the chaos on the farm was book material. I had been collecting stories for years without really thinking about it. The goats, sheep, chickens, livestock guardian dogs, and occasional disasters were simply life happening. My blog became a place to record those moments as they happened before time blurred the details.

What changed wasn't the writing - it was my understanding of what I was really collecting. Those stories weren't just about animals, farm mishaps, or rural life. They were about family, community, and a way of life that was slowly becoming part of my history. Between the Fenceposts became my way of gathering those stories together and preserving them, while sharing a few laughs along the way.

The older I get, the more I realize that stories don't just preserve events. They preserve people.

As the classic storyteller, Sandy gathered up a batch of our questions and answered them in one go!

The stars of this show are the animals and they behave with the confidence of creatures who’ve never once read a manual. Which one caused the most trouble but earned the most affection? From BK the donkey, the McDonald’s-ordering sheep, the Les Miseranimals pigs - do you have a personal favourite among the cast of misbehaving characters?

And is there an animal escapade that almost made the book but didn’t, either because it was too unbelievable or too incriminating?

If we're talking about the animal that caused the most trouble while somehow remaining lovable, the answer is goats. Not even a close contest.

My garden suffered death by goat in just a few minutes. One goat managed to leave me with a hoof-shaped bruise squarely between the eyes. Another turned an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning into what can only be described as a custody dispute. There is a reason we say, "That really gets my goat" when something aggravates us. Nobody ever says, "That really gets my cow" or "That really gets my dog." Goats earned that expression.

What makes them so exasperating is that they are intelligent enough to know better and stubborn enough to do it anyway. You can give them everything they could possibly want to keep them occupied and yet they will still, without fail, choose to stand on your car if given the chance. Apparently a perfectly good climbing structure is no match for a freshly washed vehicle.

As for my favorite animal, that would probably be Remi, my Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog. Unlike the goats, Remi's talent wasn't causing trouble - it was preventing it. No predator got past her. While the goats provided a lot of the comedy, Remi provided peace of mind. She took her job seriously, but she'd still melt into a puddle if you scratched her ears.

My favourite animal story, however, is probably Naming Your Supper. That's because it isn't really about rabbits. It's about raising children on a farm and the lessons they learn when they discover where food comes from. Looking back, those experiences shaped my children and grandchildren far more than I realised at the time.

As for the stories that didn't make it into the book, there wasn't any grand plan. If I'd included every farm story I have, you'd be holding a thousand-page doorstop. I mostly chose them one at a time. I'd read one and think, "Yep, you're in." I'd read another and think, "Not today." Fortunately, there are still plenty of stories waiting their turn.”

We might come back to that last line. Rural living has its own rhythm - part peace, part pandemonium. What’s one thing people always get wrong about farm life?

People often imagine farm life as roosters crowing at sunrise and animals peacefully grazing in green pastures while the farmer strolls around carrying a bucket and admiring the view. Parts of that are true. There are beautiful sunrises, quiet evenings, and moments when everything seems perfectly peaceful.

What people don't see are the stalls that need mucking, the bugs trying to carry you away, the animals that get sick at the worst possible moment, and the constant repairs that seem to multiply overnight. They don't always appreciate how much work goes into producing the food on their table, whether it's meat, milk, eggs, or vegetables.

Farming is also far more dangerous than most people realize. You're working around animals large enough to injure or kill you and machinery heavy enough to crush you if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. A farmer spends a surprising amount of time solving problems that didn't exist when they got out of bed that morning.

But for all the hard work, worry, and occasional heartbreak, there are also moments so ridiculous that you simply have to laugh. A sheep loudly critiques a McDonald's drive-thru order from the back of a pickup truck, or you find yourself having a conversation with a drunk, naked neighbor in the middle of the road. Those are the moments when you shake your head and say, "You just can't make this stuff up."

What's interesting is that many of my favourite stories began because someone needed help. I got kicked in the face by a goat while helping a neighbour. I once found myself riding a sheep in what could only be described as an unintended rodeo event. A friend got locked out of her car by her son while bringing goat kids over to be disbudded. The details are funny, but the common thread is that people were helping one another. That's something I've always loved about rural communities.

You write with such affection for the area. What’s the one detail that instantly brings you back there?

As for what instantly brings me back, it's the people. I love the mountains, the fields, the changing seasons, and the sight of animals grazing in a pasture, but it's the people who stay with me most. Their stories, their values, their commitment to family, and their willingness to help one another are what I cherish.

Country people are my people. They're the ones who will drop what they're doing to help a neighbour in trouble. They'll give you the shirt off their back even when they don't have much to spare themselves. It's a way of life that's becoming less common as people move away from rural communities, but it's one I deeply admire.

When I think about northern New Hampshire, or any rural community for that matter, it's not just the landscape I remember. It's the humanity.”

There are lots of laughs in this book and your humour feels effortless, but humour on the page is notoriously tricky. How do you strike the balance between funny and heartfelt?

I think people sometimes assume that humour and heartfelt moments are opposites, or that writers somehow have to balance one against the other. I've never seen it that way. Most of life isn't black and white. Some of the funniest moments I've experienced happened right in the middle of situations that were frustrating, difficult, or even heartbreaking at the time.

I don't really balance humour and heart because, in my experience, they're already present in the same place. Laughter doesn't erase tragedy, but it can make it a little easier to carry.

In many ways, humour is simply a matter of perspective. The famous photographer Elliott Erwitt once said, "Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them." I think life works the same way. We can choose to view the world through a dark cloud, or we can look for the irony, the humor, and the silver lining.

One of my favourite books growing up was Pollyanna. What stayed with me wasn't that she ignored life's difficulties, but that she looked for reasons to be grateful despite them. That's not denial. It's a choice. Bad things happen to everyone. We can't always control that. What we can control is how we respond.

As a storyteller, I don't consciously try to make a story funny or heartfelt. I simply tell the story as I experienced it. Life usually provides both.

Many of these stories feel like they were honed around a kitchen table or a firepit. Do you write them the way you’d tell them aloud?

Yes, I absolutely write the way I speak.

One of the greatest compliments I receive from readers is when they tell me they feel as though they're sitting at the kitchen table sharing stories with a friend. That's exactly what I'm hoping for.

What means even more to me is when a reader responds by telling me one of their own stories. Maybe something in the book reminded them of a parent, a grandparent, a favourite dog, or a childhood experience they'd almost forgotten. I love that. It tells me the story connected with something already living inside them. To me, that's when storytelling is at its best - not when people remember my story, but when it helps them remember theirs.

The stories in Between the Fenceposts weren't created in a writer's room. They grew out of family conversations, farm chores, church suppers, visits with neighbours, and the kinds of stories that get passed from one generation to the next whenever people gather together.

I suppose I don't think of myself primarily as a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller. Writing a book is simply a way to tell those stories to more people.”

Your stories show a community that’s equal parts helpful and hilariously unpredictable. What’s your favourite example of neighbourly “assistance” that didn’t go quite as planned?

My favourite example would have to be Sheep Wrangling.

I started out with the simple intention of helping a friend deworm her sheep. It seemed straightforward enough. Somewhere along the way, however, the sheep had other plans. Before it was over, I found myself getting an unintended rodeo ride across a pasture. I didn't get up that morning expecting to be bounced around by a woolly mammoth, but farm life has a way of rewriting your schedule.

That's one of the things I love about rural communities. People help each other because that's what neighbours do. Sometimes the assistance goes exactly as planned. Sometimes it turns into a story.

I am sure plenty of the animals, especially the goats, will love being stars in the book. But how did your family react to seeing themselves - and their roles in the chaos - appear in print?

As for my family, they've been wonderfully supportive. Although I do have one daughter who rolls her eyes at my stories the same way I used to when my father began one of his.  Apparently, storytelling is hereditary. So is eye-rolling.

Back then I thought I'd heard those stories too many times. It turns out repetition is one of the reasons family stories survive from one generation to the next.

One of the most rewarding parts of publishing the book has been the conversations it sparked. My son visited recently, and Naming Your Supper led us into a long discussion about his rabbit-raising project. He reminded me of details I'd completely forgotten and others that never made it into the story because they weren't essential to the plot. Before long we were both laughing so hard we were nearly in tears.

The same thing happened with the grandchildren. They had completely forgotten about seeing Wilbur in the roasting pan. Now that they're adults, they can laugh about it in a way they couldn't when they were children.

That's one of the unexpected gifts of writing these stories down. They don't just preserve the events. They let us visit them again. A story can transport you to another time so completely that for a few minutes you're right there again, reliving the moment with the people who shared it. And sometimes, years later, you're all laughing together about it once more.

Let's risk getting teary eyed for a moment. Beneath the laughter, there are moments of real tenderness. Which story was the most emotional for you to write?

The most emotional story for me to write was Meet My Grandma.

It took me back to my childhood and to the sights, sounds, smells, and memories that are part of my family's heritage. I hadn't thought about many of those things in years until the women in my church group were asked to bring something that had belonged to our grandmother or reminded us of her.

I chose to make Tourtière, a traditional French-Canadian meat pie. I made it the way my aunts made it, which was the way my grandmother made it. As I prepared it, memories began flooding back - not just of the recipe itself, but of the people behind it. Although my father's mother passed away before I was born, I feel as though I came to know her through the stories told by my aunts and other family members who did know her. In a way, she became part of my life through their memories.

As you may have gathered by now, family is very important to me. None of us exists in a vacuum. We are shaped by the people who came before us, whether we knew them personally or not. Their values, their experiences, their stories, and even their struggles become part of who we are. Preserving their stories helps me understand not only who they were, but who I am.

The book ends with a sense of bittersweet gratitude. What do you miss most about that chapter of your life?

I suppose the honest answer is both everything and nothing.

The final chapter of the book, A Page Turns, A Chapter Ends, But the Book Isn't Finished, is really about accepting change. Every stage of life eventually comes to an end. Children grow up. Circumstances change. New opportunities appear. We can spend our time wishing things had stayed the same, or we can embrace whatever comes next.

Of course, I should probably include a small spoiler alert. After our travels ended, we eventually returned to the farm, although on a much smaller scale than before. Apparently some chapters in life are harder to leave behind than others. I look back on those years with gratitude because they shaped me, but I don't spend much time wishing I could go backward. Every chapter of life has its own adventures, challenges, and stories waiting to be told.

And if there ever happens to be another book, it will begin where this one left off. A storyteller doesn't stop telling stories. She simply changes the content as life changes.”

We always try to include something for the authors reading this. Each chapter gathers several short tales around a theme. Did the themes come first, or did the stories naturally sort themselves?

Dividing the stories into chapters was actually one of the hardest parts of putting the book together. Some stories seemed to know exactly where they belonged. Sheep stories naturally found their way into the sheep chapter. Chicken stories gravitated toward the chicken chapter. Those decisions were easy. Others were more stubborn.

A few stories didn't seem to fit anywhere, so I spent a lot of time moving them around, trying to decide where they belonged. In some cases, the stories ended up influencing the chapter titles rather than the other way around. The original chapter title might change because the collection of stories in it had taken on a life of its own.

In many ways, organising the book felt like trying to sort a herd of goats. Most eventually wandered into the right pen. A few kept climbing the fence, escaping, and showing up where they didn't belong. Those were the stories that required the most pondering.

Those goats get everywhere! How did you decide which stories belonged in the book and which ones had to wait for another day?

There wasn't a complicated system. The decision was largely intuitive. I've accumulated hundreds of stories over the years. Some had already been written on my blog. Others existed only as notes on a story idea list waiting for their turn. If I had included everything, Between the Fenceposts would have been large enough to require structural reinforcement under the bookshelf.

In the end, I looked for stories that worked well together and captured the spirit of the book. Some immediately felt like they belonged between these covers. Others seemed content to stay on the side lines and wait for another opportunity. The stories that didn't make it weren't necessarily less important or less humorous. There simply wasn't room for all of them.

Fortunately, stories are patient. The ones that didn't make it into this book are still waiting for their turn.

The book is a collection of short tales so let’s have a quickfire round – no thinking, just the first answer that comes (and hopefully with a brief explanation!)

Goats: lovable geniuses or tiny anarchists?

Tiny anarchists. Goats have just enough intelligence to get themselves into trouble. It's like having a whole nursery full of toddlers without opposable thumbs. They definitely require adult supervision.

Which animal on the farm had the strongest main-character energy?

The dogs. The Great Pyrenees were capable of thinking independently. They made decisions about what was a threat, what wasn't, and how best to handle each situation. I trusted them to do their jobs even when I wasn't home. The English Shepherds weren't just dogs - they were my farm partners, always willing to help bring chaos into order.

What’s the one chore you’d happily never do again?

Processing animals.

I loved and cared for those animals, but I always knew they would eventually become food. It was never easy to send them to what we called "freezer camp," but it was a responsibility that came with raising livestock. As an Iowa farmer I follow often says, "Just because it's sad doesn't mean it's wrong."

Funniest disaster that only took five seconds to happen?

Pig Pen Plunge.

It didn't start out funny, but it eventually became hilarious. It's not often someone has to strip down outside the house and yell, "Close your eyes!" so they can make a dash to the shower and wash pig mud off every part of their body.

Which animal would you trust least with a simple instruction?

The sheep.

They proved time and again that they simply don't get it. If I told the dogs to move left, they'd move left. If I told the goats to move left, they'd at least consider my suggestion. The sheep would stare at me as though I were speaking ancient Greek.

The tool you reach for most - and the one you absolutely shouldn't?

The tool I reached for most was probably fencing pliers.

The tool I absolutely shouldn't have reached for was overconfidence. Every time I thought I had the animals figured out, they immediately proved otherwise.

Clever second answer! Which season causes the most chaos on a homestead?

Winter.

There's nothing quite like trying to do chores in forty-below-zero weather or a blizzard to make you question your sanity. Water freezes. Gates freeze. Fingers freeze. Everything becomes an adventure.

What’s the most “I can’t believe this is my life” moment you’ve had?

There have been a lot of contenders, but Some Days Are Just Like That ranks pretty high on the list. I started the day worried about Indy's swollen paw and ended it having dented a car with the vanity plate "BIG GUN" after spending an hour in a vet's waiting room with a wrecking ball of a boxer puppy named Junior, a teenager who was determined to show me every picture she had ever taken, and a cat that seemed determined to become dog food. Some days make perfect sense while you're living them. That wasn't one of them.

If your farm had a motto, what would it be?

“Life is too important to take seriously." Anyone who has spent time around livestock knows that plans are temporary and humility is inevitable.

My personal motto, however, has always been "On to the next great adventure." That's been my approach not just to farming, but to life. Every time one chapter ends, another begins. In fact, I want it engraved on my headstone.

Phew! Now we are coming to the end of the interview, let's think about what is next.

Readers will finish this book wanting more. Are there stories still waiting between the fenceposts that you might share someday?

Oh yes, there are plenty more stories waiting between the fenceposts. One thing that never changes about farm life - or life in general - is that it keeps happening. Almost every day something occurs that makes me raise an eyebrow and think, "Well, would you look at that?"

Some stories get written down immediately. Others get added to my ever-growing story idea list to wait their turn. Between the farm, the animals, the neighbours, the travels, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and the simple unpredictability of everyday life, I don't think I'll run out of material anytime soon. As long as you're paying attention, life keeps handing you new stories.

If you could invite readers to your farm for one afternoon, what moment from your life there would you want them to experience?

I think I'd choose the moment described in Morning Reflection. Not because it was dramatic or exciting, but because it captured something easy to miss in our busy lives. The chores hadn't started yet. Nothing was demanding my attention. For a few brief moments, the goats were peacefully grazing by the pond, Gabriel stood watch at the water's edge, and the whole world seemed to pause.

Those moments are all around us, but we're often too busy to notice them.

If readers came to visit, I wouldn't necessarily want to show them the biggest farm project, the funniest animal escapade, or the most memorable disaster. I'd want them to stand quietly beside that pond on a misty morning and experience that feeling of peace and gratitude.

Life has a way of making us stop in awe if we're willing to pay attention. Sometimes the most important moments aren't the ones where something happens. They're the ones where, for a brief moment, everything simply is.

And you remember: this is home.

Thanks to Sandy for joining us to discuss Between The Fenceposts and more!

You can read more about Sandy and her work HERE.